Jeopardy! Who is the GOAT?

Nope. If that is your logic, then Nancy Zerg has to be in the conversation as the best female contestant of all time, as she beat the GOAT Ken Jennings ending his 74-game win streak.

She was defeated in the next episode.

 

Huh? Boettcher won more games, then contended against -- and beat again -- Holzhauer. I'm not an aficionado of the show and its history, but my friend who played against her -- who the Jeopardy! Reddit crowd vaunted for his performance -- noted her speed on the buzzer, her icy countenance, and her vast knowledge.

Discounting my logic is a bit heavy-handed, don't you think?

 

I was using reductio ad absurdum to make a point.

This we can agree on. She has to be all of these things to have the job she does. Which is arguably the most important role on Jeopardy! behind the camera. And a close second to Alex’s role on the overall show itself.

 

There is nothing I posted that can be rationally interpreted as resulting in an appeal to extremes or logical fallacy pertaining to Maggie Speak or her job abilities.

 

1. You've cited no evidence it was fixed. Coincidences to which you arbitrarily attach significance are not evidence.
2. To successfully pull off a fix, more than just one producer would have to be in on it. The director and tech people would have to know, as they'd be manipulating the board on the fly.
3. As I and others have noted, they would not have ended the tournament after just four episodes if it was fixed. Imagine the ratings a final seventh episode would have drawn if there was a three-way tie for first. Why fix the show in such a way that costs millions in profits?
4. Beyond all that, you've yet to state a plausible reason as to why they would fix the tournament. Doing so would be a substantial risk which could bring down the show if discovered. What is the reward that warrants such a huge risk?

 

Lol @ where this thread has went and the idea that ludicrous conspiracies should be afforded the same opinion status as “I enjoy chocolate ice cream more than vanilla.” I mean, really?

 

Impressive, yes, but winning one game of a two-game match isn't quite the same as winning a single game. The strategy must be different, since there's no need to be ahead at the end of game 1.

In retrospect, Brad Rutter wasn't the most competitive choice for the GOAT tournament, though he was amusing and with a good rapport with the other guys. Who might have been a better 3rd choice for tighter matches? I.e., who was the "4th" on the list? Certainly someone not as rusty as Brad, perhaps even Emma, mentioned above though she was "just" a 3-day champion, a great feat in itself.

I do admit that Brad had the great selling point of the most total money won, and never having lost to a human.

 

That's true. James won the first game, but his wagers in the second game would probably have been different if they'd been playing two separate games instead of a two-game match. Nonetheless, the fact remains that they went up against each other three time, and she outscored him twice.

 

To hear these opinions you use to have to leave your house at 10:30am and go to a bar to talk to the day drinkers.

Isn't the internet great. And Ken is GOAT!

 

I just watched all 4 days of it in a row and I see no issues at all.

Brett got a lot of Daily Doubles AND many Daily Doubles came early - but that's still consistent with them being random over such a small sample size. Now if they played 1,000,000 games and the Brett still got twice as many as James or Ken then I might see an issue.We'd only need between 200,000 and 334,000 more GOAT tournaments to find a pattern.

Brett did pretty well actually - it was like a NBA player in the all star games - but the other two players are Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan. He was in the positive for all days and got responses that the others missed.

What sees to have happened is that Ken and James are just more knowledgeable - where as the other 99.999% of players that have ever played could not maintain the consistency. And if you watch Brett he's on the buzzer where he doesn't win the buzz in - he wasn't declining to participate.

Also Ken radically changed his betting style and choosing in response to James's style - and Day 1 was within 200 points between James and Ken so I don't see any way it was rigged.

But do this: just prove me wrong. With proof.

 

It took me a minute to understand who "Brett" was. His name is Brad, right?

But I agree with everything you've said.

 

I think it was Brett because he has a big brain?? (My mistake.)

 

He should be a spokesman for Big Kahuna Burger.

 

Wasn't it "Brad" in Pulp Fiction ?

 

No, it's "Brett". Just sounds like "Brad" the way SLJ says it!

 

"Say 'What is...' one more time. I dare you!"

 

Not sure why I have to mention this (since it's rather obvious, however this really hasn't been mentioned before here), but a lot of times who wins or loses depends on the categories as a whole -- and which category has the DDs, who gets the DDs, how they bet, whether they get it right --- and most of the same things also apply to Final Jeopardy! (with the obvious exception that all play Final Jeopardy! assuming they have a positive score). Of course, Final Jeopardy! only matters if the game is not a runaway for one of the contestants.

I don't remember the particulars at this point, but I would almost guarantee the regular games that ended both Ken Jennings's and James Holzhauer's long winning streaks had big turning points on either the DDs or Final Jeopardy!

For the two contestants that beat Jennings and Holzhauer in regular games, things broke right for them. If they were to have played a second game, I would say it would be very unlikely those two contestants would have won again.

 

There was a game two nights ago where the champ and a guy in the center both had totals up in the 12-14 thousand range going into Final. The lady on the right had struggled all game long and went into final with $200.

She bet her full $200 and was correct with the answer, going to $400. The current champ was next highest, bet nearly everything, and was wrong, giving him a total of $399. At that point, Alex interjected that it would be interesting indeed if the lady with the $400 would end up the daily champ after struggling all game. But the middle guy got it right and became the new daily champ.

 

I observe towards the end of Double Jeopardy (when there's "less than a minute to go"), that there might be situations where it would be in your best interest to "not" answer questions, especially if there are no more DDs. One obvious case is if you are in the lead, with a runaway, in a weak subject for you, where if you miss a question you might lose enough to make the game "not" be a runaway anymore. (or a related tactic would be to pick the lowest valued clues still on the board, if you are far enough ahead that even if one or two of them were answered correctly by your opponents, you would have a better chance of still having a runaway if the "end of game" timer were to go off right then)

The other cases I can think of involve if you are in a distant third, and you want the two people ahead of you to have closer scores so you have a chance in Final Jeopardy (due to the two contestants having to bet big to "guard" against each other). You might not answer and hope that the second place person answers to make the gap closer between the second place person and the first place person.

However, having never actually been on the program, I wonder, especially if it was your first time on the show (i.e., you were not the returning champion), if you would have your wits enough about you to think that way -- with all the things going on around you.

 

Or if someone won by a dollar. With ONLY $1. Oh wait, it happened. Twice.

'Jeopardy!' Champion Wins With Just $1 In Jaw-Dropping Finale (UPDATE) | HuffPost

Jeopardy! Archive: $1 Winners | J!Buzz | Jeopardy.com

 

James is a big sports gambler, and I can't believe he missed the garnet answer for the team colors. I even knew Iago, on the Final question, and I am by no means a Shakespeare expert. Of course I got destroyed on most of the other questions. LOL!

 

He knew it. Does not mean that he had to provide the answer.

James isn’t a Shakespeare expert either, but knew that is one of Jeopardy’s favorite topics. You have to believe that he had more than a cursory knowledge of him, studied on a known weakness and furthermore, going up against Jennings. Again, IMHO, he could have provided Iago.

Do not feel bad at all. I think all of us not named Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer struggled.

The questions (overall) were extremely hard compared to a “regular “ Jeopardy! syndicated match.

 

I find it hard to believe that James would ever intentionally fail at this (i.e., not provide an answer that he knew, when it would be beneficial for him to do so -- as I discussed in my earlier post, there may be times when it is beneficial to not answer, but the "garnet" answer was not one of those times).

How can you say you know that he knew the answers to these questions? You sound like one of my ex-girlfriends who tried to tell me what I was thinking --- as if she could physically get into my head and know that.
=======================

I remember seeing an episode relatively recently (within the last couple years) --
when all three contestants bet everything in Final Jeopardy! -- all missed the question -- and all wound up with $0.
Nobody won the game -- and (per a Jeopardy rule which I did not know), none of the three were allowed to come back. There were three new contestants the next night.

 

I am lost with these comments. If James had answered Iago that night, he would have tied up the tournament at 2-2 with Ken. Wouldn't that have been James' objective? To win?

 

See James didn't want to win big money because of REASONS.

See, makes sense now right? HE has REASONS to not try to win $1,000,0000 dollars.

He knew it, but LEGALLY he wasn't compelled to say it out loud for REASONS!